Transcribed by Aajonus.net & Rawmeatgang
After 8 rallies in 3 years, in spring of 2000, Aajonus was able to take the health department to the Board of Supervisors to free raw milk.
[outside]
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it!
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it!
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it!
Q: Right now!
Q: [unintelligible]
A: ...Katherine Rye all the time? Katherine Rye is new. Well I've got the right company.
Police: Hi! [unintelligible] I know you guys are going to be coming in.
Q: Like last time, we're not going to sit and wait for all those awards.
Q: I dress up well.
Q: I haven't finished though.
Q: You stay on that side.
Q: Right to choose [unintelligible].
A: They just need to approve the vote. They need to align the county code with the state code.
Police: [unintelligible]
A: You're missing a lot.
Police: [unintelligible]
A: No, we can just buy it at the stores.
Q: You're lucky to be here.
Police: [unintelligible]
A: I gave a 43-page report saying that all tests my university showed it isn't. The CDC [unintelligible].
Q: I want milk. I want milk.
Q: Make a tiny sign for her.
Q: I want milk. I want milk.
Q: We need more people out here.
Q: [unintelligible]
A: Good. You want to say anything to the camera?
Q: What?
A: Do you want to say anything?
Q: Oh, oh. Our right to drink raw milk. It's too early in the morning for me.
Q: $90,000.
Q: $90,000,000.
Q: $90,000,000. So those pastures companies are making fortunes.
Q: Well, they're making money. They're not only making money, but you see, the bigwigs are getting...
Q: The bigwigs who are they? The ones that, you know, the owners of the processing companies. They're getting big rake-offs. They're getting big rake-offs if they can process milk. You know, if they can heat the milk and then cool it back down again and sell it two weeks later on. See, the contention is that raw milk doesn't keep as long. Well, I just happen to know that I produce milk that's kept for three weeks under refrigeration. Well, if it sours in three days, naturally, people don't like sour milk. But so they process this milk if it's sour in three days and lengthen the shelf life so that they can sell it. So they wouldn't have to feed it to the hogs. I say if it's not good to eat or drink, feed it to the hogs.
Q: That's right.
Q: But actually, the hogs have got the better end of the deal. The stuff that we fed to the hogs, we're getting better milk than they're getting now, than the people are getting now, because of pasteurisation.
Q: That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
Q: Oh yeah, it's utter madness.
Q: Do you think we stand a chance against the bigwigs?
Q: Oh, I think so.
Q: They want to make such a profit.
Q: What's that?
Q: But they're making such a big profit.
Q: Well, that's true. That is the biggest problem. That's the biggest obstacle, is to break through the profit barrier. You know, not only the food processors are making money, but our pharmaceutical companies are making money selling antibiotics to farmers to feed their cows. And pretty soon it catches up and bites us in the butt.
Q: That's right.
Q: So, I mean, there's nothing better than raw milk.
Q: It is.
Q: Ask any [unintelligible].
Q: What's the problem with antibiotics in the cows? Well, that's the problem. A lot of people will feed their cows antibiotics. You know, if the cow has a sniffle or something like that. They feed them all, give them all some antibiotics, kind of get them through that thing. Bad news, but they're doing it. And if we could have some incentive, people would realize what they're getting. You know, what they're buying when they buy pasteurized milk. They're buying milk from every Tom, Dick, and Harry. But if they buy raw milk and it tastes good, you bet it's good. Because raw milk has a decency that turns sour before it becomes unfit to drink. That's right.
Q: Have you signed in to speak yet?
Q: No, I haven't signed it yet, but I sure will.
Q: You represent, you said, [unintelligible].
Q: Well, I know them well, and I'm fighting for the cause of raw milk, of course. And being I'm 73 years old, I want the right to buy it. I don't necessarily want to produce it, although maybe I'll have to come out of retirement and produce it.
[unintelligible]
Q: You sent the fax to Wild Oats, didn't you?
A: Pardon?
Q: The fax to Wild Oats Market?
A: Yes, I did. Mary Gibbons. Hi there.
Q: We're going to go in a few minutes.
Q: What's Melanie's last name?
Q: She is. Yes, she is.
Q: Do you know what Melanie and Craig's last name is?
Q: No.
Q: And you're going to speak?
A: Well, those are presentations.
Q: They're doing some presentations.
A: They just now started the presentation, so it will be about 20 minutes.
Police: No, they do the prayer, and then after the prayer they start the presentation.
A: Right.
Police: And then they give the signal.
Q: How many presentations do you have?
Police: Oh, like we have one presentation that's going to the probation department.
[unintelligible]
A: Phil, what happened to Sophie?
[unintelligible]
Q: No, but we use his connectors in our stuff. Actually, my company is one of his customers.
[unintelligible]
Don't worry.
Okay.
Refreshing.
Q: Right now.
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw Milk.
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now.
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
A: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
A: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
A: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
A: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
A: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
A: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
A: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
A: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
A: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
A: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
Q: What do we want?
Q: Raw milk!
Q: When do we want it?
Q: Right now!
[courtroom]
Q: We looked at what would be the implications of different approaches to grading raw milk. And let me be clear that our issue is simply protection against communicable disease. In terms of the risk versus the benefit, the risks are well known. Kids are disproportionately affected. About, CDC reports that about 4% of raw milk, for example, in one national study had the listeria, which is quite serious. And despite the fact that the vast majority of milk today is pasteurized, the vast majority of milk-related outbreaks are from unpasteurized milk. In addition, in our county, in the year, last year that there was significant production, that is from July 1998 to June 1999, about 58% of the time the milk was held because it didn't meet the standards that the Milk Commission had set up. And usually that was because there was contamination with coliforms, that is fecal material, in the milk. In addition, we asked the state what the, we tried to understand what the State Food and Agriculture Department was doing in terms of their monitoring. And it was clear in terms of the responses that the single herd that has been selling milk, which is now centered in Watsonville, the state was not meeting its own requirements in terms of the testing process. And based on my understanding of what they should be doing, in some cases they should have discontinued sale of that milk, and they did not. So we recommend working with the state, asking them to consider a hold and test process for grade A and guaranteed raw milk, and to establish a standard for coliform bacteria. And again, I want to iterate that our concern is making sure the milk is as safe as possible, not to prevent its sale. Thank you.
Q: My amendment to the ordinance would be that while the Department of Health Services report expresses concern regarding the state's inspection system for guaranteed and grade A raw milk and the results of their inspections, the state has a responsibility to ensure that appropriate procedures are being followed when approving the sale of raw milk statewide. We move that the board approve the ordinance that will allow the sale in Los Angeles County of guaranteed raw milk and grade A raw milk, in addition to certified raw milk, further moving that the Department of Health Services work with the state to ensure that the state inspection system for guaranteed and grade A is properly applied to all dairies producing raw milk. Does that meet the amendment?
Q: I have a couple of questions.
Q: Mr. Yaroslavsky.
Q: Was it the milk commission, did the milk commission change its policies or the county policies in the last few years? Is that what happened here? What has transpired and created this problem or whatever?
Q: The raw milk producer no longer produces and the ordinance applied to Los Angeles, but the producer, or adjacent county, but the producer is now in Northern California and there's none in Southern California.
Q: Is there anything that our milk commission did?
Q: The milk commission was established, what, in 1991? It's been there a long time, I'm sorry... What they decided in the early 1990s, I don't have the exact date, they required, sorry? Well, in the early 90s they required, they started to require daily samples taken from the holding tank, tested for total bacteria, for coliform bacteria, and for E. coli. In the mid-90s, I don't have the exact date again, they added salmonella testing twice a month. And in 1998, when new technologies, more rapid tests of salmonella became feasible, they required testing in each batch of salmonella, using a test that produced results in 48 hours. So I'm not sure specifically what change was made that made it more difficult.
Q: Okay, now let me ask you a couple questions. Most of the counties in this state allow the sale of uncertified raw milk, is that correct?
Q: Well, it's a very dated...
Q: Fixed rate standards?
Q: Well...
Q: I'm reading from your own report.
[laughter]
Q: Yeah, well, some counties don't. Alameda County, for example, Fremont, Livermore, and Alameda prohibit raw milk sales, Humboldt prohibits, and a bunch of other... Some, many counties do, as do our cities of Long Beach and Pasadena.
Q: Staff surveyed several other counties to determine whether they permitted raw milk to be sold. Alameda County prohibits the sale in unincorporated areas. Humboldt County also prohibits the sale of raw milk. Counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco permit raw milk sale, as do the cities of Long Beach and Pasadena. That's a lot of counties. Now, I guess my question to you is, what do we know that San Francisco and Santa Clara and Ventura and Riverside and the cities of Long Beach and Pasadena don't know?
Q: I can't really speak for what kind of due diligence those counties have done. I can tell you that when we looked at what the state was doing, that we were concerned because it did not appear that they were meeting their own standards and that they were allowing milk to be sold from a herd that had a score that was much lower than that that would have permitted sale. And we've read now under request for information the reports of those inspections and they indicate very serious and frequent pervasive problems.
Q: What is the, from a public health point of view, how serious is this, you're the chief public health officer of the county, how serious is this compared to other public health concerns that the department and our society have?
Q: The percentage of people, we don't have good information on what percentage of the population consumes raw milk, but from what we know it's a small, very small percentage, so from that fact alone it's a smaller concern than many others. Our concern primarily is children and a significant percentage of the cases, for example, salmonella, which can be gotten from milk occurring in kids. In addition, salmonella dublin, which is the strain most associated with milk, is much more serious. The infection is about three quarters of them might have hospitalized and the death rate is 20 to 25 percent, so that's our primary concern.
Q: On the scheme of overall disease burden, it would certainly not be as high as many other things, but the level of risk that is increased is significant compared to the risk of pasteurized milk.
Q: Do you have statistics that differentiate the incidence of salmonella from the consumption, as a result of consumption of raw milk, compared to the norm in the population?
Q: There's some data, some data from here, some data from the CDC. One of our problems is that there's very low rate of reporting, probably no more than 5 percent of all food-borne illness. But the vast majority of food-borne illness in milk comes from the very small percentage of milk which is not pasteurized. Based on state and national data.
Q: And what do we expect will be the result if this motion is approved, if this change of the ordinance is approved? I understand that the one dairy or the one producer, distributor of raw milk in San Bernardino County ceased doing so, is that right?
Q: Yes, at least not producing it under the county program.
Q: So by reducing or weakening our standards, which is what this would be, no matter which side you're on in this issue, it lowers the standard of testing. What guarantee is there that raw milk distribution would reappear in this county or in the adjacent counties? I mean, is there any, maybe you know the answer to this, or are the dairies saying that if you lower the standards we'll produce raw milk again, or what?
Q: I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that.
Q: We have representatives here.
Q: Maybe they can address it when they speak on a public comment. That's all I have for now.
Q: Supervisor Burke.
Q: Now it was in 95 when they had the, there were 10 people in California who had the salmonella virus, was it? I mean, I know that there were cases in 73 and 85.
Q: Right.
Q: In the last decade there were 10 people in 95.
Q: This refers to the outbreaks, Supervisor. There may well have been a lot more, but it's not reported and didn't occur in more than one person at a time, at least to the best of our knowledge.
Q: I see 10 people during some particular time.
Q: Well, this was an outbreak, Supervisor. This was an outbreak that was traced to a common cause, and it was Salmonella typhimurium, a Copenhagen variant, which basically the fingerprinting that was done determined that it was the same as found in the raw milk.
Q: What kind of Salmonella do you get from eggs, raw eggs?
Q: I think you get the same type of Salmonella.
[unintelligible]
Q: Yeah, but it's a different variant, but it's the Salmonella.
Q: And then I guess from turkey, if you touch the turkeys, or if you clean them on your sink and you cut vegetables or touch any raw food, you get another one?
Q: You can get different varieties.
Q: But they're different ones?
Q: You can get different ones.
Q: Okay. My understanding is what's being proposed here is there would be a warning on the bill that this is a possibility of being infected and that there would have to be some kind of sign, which is the way other counties do it. Is that what's being proposed here?
Q: Supervisor, there's already a warning required on the bottle, and that warning indicates that there are potential problems for children, older people, pregnant women, and those whose immunity may be low. The concern is that oftentimes people don't look at those warnings. There are so many warnings on so many things these days, and in fact, in our investigation of one of these outbreaks, people didn't remember seeing any warning.
Q: Was that cheese or milk in 1995?
Q: The 1995 was raw milk, Supervisor.
Q: Not cheese?
Q: Not cheese. We did have that in 1985, that large outbreak, and it was related to cheese that contained raw milk.
Q: Okay, thank you. Harold Stube, Raymond Noel, Bill Dannemeyer.
Q: Good afternoon.
Q: I'm Harold Stube, and I'm here to represent the raw milk. I'd like to say quite a few things here. I hope I can [unintelligible]. But anyway, I've been on raw milk for 83 years, and I've never had salmonella, and I [unintelligible]. And I still drink my raw milk every day. And what I'm talking about here, what previous people said a minute ago, I have a copy here of the Veterinary Journal from England, London, England, that states they made an experiment on human beings, and you have to ingest 2,000 to 4,000 million organisms without showing too many symptoms, in general, will only cause a mild diarrhea. When we had a bill up in legislation in 1969, and the health department was fighting it fiercely, and they passed through that certified raw milk would be available. And lo and behold, the health department didn't want to go along with this new order that the legislation put in. And the health department then came and wanted to put in that salmonella dublin would be classified the same as [unintelligible] fever or TB and all those kind of things. And NMR had to spill into legislation, and he asked me, can you live with it? I said, absolutely, they cannot find any salmonella. So that law was passed that if there would be one salmonella found in milk, then he recalled. And so the health department picked up milk from our dairy. I'm going to show you what kind of conclusion this is. Picked up raw milk from us every Monday morning for four years and could not find a salmonella. And they came in with a [unintelligible] system, which was developed, my understanding, in New York. And by coming in with this, when they had this in New York, to really find out where the source had come from. And here they come in with it, and now they can check raw milk. So in 1977, they came on again, and they checked again for salmonella. And they went ahead and used a [unintelligible] system where you put a gauze into milk, with an attractor on it, pick up salmonella, and would swirl it around and then do that two times, and a [unintelligible]. Just trying to get certified raw milk and all raw milk out of this nation. And it's such a mistake. Our attorney can tell you a lot more. I've been living on raw milk, as I said before, for 83 years. I still get my raw milk, I get it right from the farm. I maintain the Lord gave us the finest food in the world. It's in raw milk. You can live on raw milk. You cannot live on pasteurized milk. Nowhere in the world. And I maintain nobody gets salmonella from our certified raw milk. [unintelligible] planet all the time. I'll let the attorney tell you about that. Remember we used to produce certified raw milk and all raw milk was produced by hand milk. You may have milked half open bucket. You milked the fly and debris into the milk. Now you had to run it through the strainer. The strainer had to be changed mid-afternoon with fly and debris. And all that milk was consumed as raw milk. And nobody got raw milk. Raw milk has the immune in it. In fact, I have a sheet there showing you what all you lose by processing. When you have your raw milk... I lost my [unintelligible]. Sorry...
Q: My name is Raymond Novell. I'm a consumer of raw milk. And I represented Altadena Dairy in the 80s, tried eight lawsuits against Altadena Dairy, two jury trials, all to defense verdicts, all of the jurors asking me afterwards, what do they have in for raw milk? But what I'm most disappointed about today, and with all due respect to Dr. Fielding's statement, the vast majority of foodborne outbreaks from milk are from raw milk is simply not a factual statement. It is untrue. I provided you with just a very short summary, in three columns, the difference of the outbreaks of pasteurized milk, other foods, and raw milk. Raw milk has a warning label, the other foods don't. The largest foodborne outbreak in modern history came from properly pasteurized milk in March of 1985, when over 19,000 people were reported ill. At first it was reported that this had raw milk in it, but it turned out that it didn't, and the way they knew it didn't was because the coliform count was near zero, the plate count was near 400, you can't make raw milk that clean. Pasteurized milk is allowed to have 10 coliform and 15,000 bacteria per milliliter. Grade A raw milk is allowed to have 15,000 bacteria, the same. Massachusetts outbreak was actually four different outbreaks over about a three or four month period of time. Another outbreak that happened from raw milk was the outbreak of listeria that was associated with pasteurized milk in Massachusetts. We know from the Centers for Disease Control and the California Morbidity and Mortality Report put out by the California Department of Health Services that listeria is not killed in the pasteurization process, it is in pasteurized milk. If it's there, it won't be killed in the pasteurization process. So for someone to suggest that raw milk should not be available to those who want to buy it with a warning label, to someone is to suggest that you just simply ignore every other food source that causes human illness. Dr. Fielding was right about one thing, only about 5% of foodborne outbreaks or foodborne illnesses are reported. The other millions of cases that come from restaurants, meat, macaroni salad, cheese, those types of things, your vacuum cleaner at home, has been associated with Salmonella. It's simply misleading you and not giving you all the facts to work with. The Mexican-style cheese outbreak in 1985, at least the cheese outbreak, I actually tried that case here in Los Angeles County, crossed the way to a jury for five weeks, and the jury, after hearing all of the evidence, testimony from Centers for Disease Control, from the California Department of Health Service, from the Los Angeles County Health, all found that Altadena dairy raw milk had absolutely nothing to do with that outbreak. There was no raw milk in that cheese. That cheese was pasteurized. What they did find was some listeria in a cracked container of a pokey cheese, which was prepared in the Altadena plant, but found in a dumpster at the Jalisco cheese plant, and that was the one that was tested that found listeria. They found no listeria in any of them.
So to continue to say that raw milk has been associated with foodborne outbreaks is ridiculous. They reported a raw milk outbreak from Wisconsin, so I checked into it. I said, Wisconsin doesn't have raw milk. How can they have an outbreak? It turns out that a family was on a picnic after graduation in June, and they ran out of milk. They went next door to the farmer's barn. He had no milk, but he did have milk in a big barrel, because the horses had been slurping on it, so they took a bucket out of their back. The people got sick. That was reported, and is reported, as a raw milk outbreak. I suggest that that's an outbreak of horse food, consumption of horse food. I wrote to the JAMA, Journal of American Medical Association, a letter. Dr. Lundgren, who was president at the time and head of that association, said, you know, don't you think you ought to correct this. It's kind of misleading, and he didn't respond to me. But that's the kind of things we deal with. Dr. Fielding said people die. One of the, in the California statistics, Dr. Werner's statistics on Salmonella Dublin, the people reported hospitalized, one was an infant who had broken the femur bone, the largest bone in his body. That was an association with drinking raw milk. He was hospitalized because he drank raw milk. Another was a lady who died while swimming off the coast of San Mateo. Her death was associated with Salmonella Dublin. When I asked Dr. Werner about this under oath, in testimony, both in courtrooms and in depositions, he said that he did not make any statement that those were the cause. And he also said another thing which I think is really important here, and that is Salmonella typhimurium is the most common type of Salmonella. It's found throughout our food chain. And the reason, quote, we don't test for it in other foods is because if we did, we'd find it. If they tested meat, if they tested restaurants, if they tested any other product as much as they tested raw milk, we wouldn't have food to eat because our food does contain those organisms from time to time. And our product, or the product, the grade A raw milk product will have a label on it. People have to pay more for it. The last one I bought was $4.69 for a quart over in the Felix district of Claravale. They're at $4.69. I didn't [unintelligible] by mistake. And people seek it out. So our position is simply, as you have on your wall up here, free enterprise. If the people don't buy it, they're not going to package it. And if the people get sick from it, and one other thing, the Stube family since 1945, actually Harold since 1942, has bottled raw milk, ultimately certified raw milk. There's been billions of glasses of raw milk consumed by Californians. And not one time in this state has there been an outbreak of illness from milk. An outbreak as defined by Dr. Werner as two or more cases of [unintelligible]. So to suggest that this product should be treated differently than other foods I think is discriminatory and in violation of the free enterprise system. Thank you.
[applause]
Q: ...Orange County problems in Long Beach or Pasadena.
Q: Orange County, Ventura, San Bernardino...
Q: Mr Mayor? If I can offer suggestions, I see a lot of familiar faces in the audience and I've heard their testimony on numerous occasions. The only folks that I've heard oppose your motion basically is the health department. And they're not really opposing it, they're just, you know, a difference of opinion I think. Are there anyone else out there in support of that position?
Q: Everybody who's signed up who would support, why don't you stand up because of the time factor. OK, anybody...
A: Approximately 30 had to leave and go back to work.
Q: I understand we have their names here. Thank you.
Q: Anybody in the audience that opposes [unintelligible]?
Q: [unintelligible]
Q: Mr. Yaroslavski.
Q: I was just going to move the question.
Q: Let me just, I was struggling with this since you brought this darn thing up. And I wish I'd never heard of raw milk. But it's part of what we get paid the big bucks for. You know, I do respect Dr. Fielding's point of view and our health department's point of view. And I don't minimize it in the least bit. But I also have to say that, you know, my struggle has been I just don't see that the health of this county is significantly different. I haven't seen the evidence that there is. I'm happy to see it compared to the other counties which have no regulation like ours. And I think it's a close call. But these folks have come down here several times. You know, they want to be left to their own devices and do what they want to do and take their risks as long as we're advising quite openly what the or requiring the advice quite openly what the risks are. You know, this is a lot safer than cigarette smoking.
[laughter, applause]
Q: But I do want to say to the raw milk advocates that I am concerned about the health implications because it isn't just about you. It's about if there is a disease problem or a carrying of a disease problem, then it's about all of us. And if somebody, if the incidence is significantly higher than the rest of the population, if somebody who's a raw-milk drinker is working in a restaurant that I frequent, then I'm down the loop. But I don't see that [unintelligible]. Even Dr. Fielding had to put it in the context of this whole thing. So I'm prepared to support the motion. But I do want to make one amendment. I want a formal study to be done for the effective date of this. I want the Health Department to monitor, based on previous review ordinances, the control point and monitor the incidence, if there is a change of incidence of salmonella or any other related diseases, and report to us, where's Dr. Fielding? Would a year be an appropriate time after the adoption of this ordinance, six months? And what would give us some quality information?
Q: It depends.
Q: Go ahead. Come on up here, so you'll be on the record. Supervisor, I think it depends on several things. Number one, how quickly milk becomes available under the state program. That isn't currently sold, other than in Pasadena and Long Beach. Number two, the level of consumption. We really don't have good information on how many people are drinking raw milk, so we need some evidence of that.
Q: But you can tell if tomorrow this ordinance goes into effect, six months or a year from now, you'll be able to tell whether the incidence of salmonella poisoning in the county has gone up, gone down, stayed the same, couldn't you?
Q: We can in general, but if it's a very small portion of the population drinking it, it may not affect within our confidence intervals for quite a long time, even though it might be much higher in that group, because it's a small portion of the population.
Q: Well, I would ask that you provide us with whatever information you can that would either, well, just whatever information you can, six months from now and a year from now, on what's happened, if anything, in the raw milk-related diseases that you've identified in your reports as a result of this ordinance passing. And if the end result, if the sample is too small and there hasn't been any change, you ought to report that too.
Q: If we had information, Supervisor, on how much was being sold and where it was being sold, that might contribute. I can't say we would get it, but we don't have that information. That would be voluntarily on the part of the, of Stubes.
Q: Well, okay. I doubt that they would have any objection to sharing that information with you, would they? Would you have any objection to letting our health department know where you're selling, if you're selling?
Q: If they're selling. They're not selling. They haven't sold any for 10 years.
Q: I had members of my staff looking for Pasadena in Long Beach and couldn't find it in Long Beach over the last weekend.
Q: Salmonella rates stayed the same. They haven't had any raw milk in two years, so there's their preliminary study.
Q: Well, actually, in one of your reports, there was a suggestion, if my memory serves me correctly, that there may have been a slight decrease after 1998.
Q: Well, there's been several things going on. Of course, we've had a much improved retail food inspection system as well. So there are a number of things happening, but if we could find out how much is being sold, where it's sold, and when the decision is to sell it, that might help. Again, I think the sample size is going to be very low. And as I say, reporting is very low, on the order of 1 to 5 percent of foodborne illness. So I'm not optimistic, but we'll do everything we can to supervise it.
Q: That's all I'm asking. Thank you.
Q: But, you know, it comes down to freedom of choice, and if raw milk killed everybody, we wouldn't be here today because some people who came here had to live on raw milk, depending on the types of methods. But let me just appreciate those coming down, and we'll call the roll as amended.
Q: Supervisor Molina?
Q: Supervisor Molina? We're voting.
Q: No.
Q: Supervisor Burdick?
Q: Aye.
Q: Supervisor Yaroslavski?
Q: Aye.
Q: Supervisor [unintelligible]?
Q: Aye.
Q: And Supervisor [unintelligible]?
Q: Aye. It's ordered. Thank you. Thank you very much.
[applause]
Q: Finally. We've got the right to choose. We've got the right to choose.
Q: Oh man. Oh wonderful.
Q: I would ask that we call up item number two.
Q: Number two.
Q: How long does it take now when they pass it? What does that mean? Stubes is going to be a month.
Q: What's that?
Q: It takes six months.
Q: Let's not get excited until we get out of there.
Q: It takes six months.
Q: Doesn't matter.
Q: I mean, I've got to get my bag. Thank you. Thank you. We've been waiting for your milk for so long.
Q: Thank you very much.
[chatter]
Q: And then there's two. Number one, number two. I'd ask for you to eliminate number two. I don't think that's necessary at this point. But one, that they adopt a regional aviation plan that de-emphasizes...
[going back outside]
[chatter]
Q: All right.
Q: Woo!
Q: After so long of fighting these battles...
A: I know. We got it. Roger, thank you, thank you, thank you. We did it.
Q: [unintelligible]
A: We all deserve this. We're together. I came here by myself two years ago. Didn't do a thing.
Q: He's been on it for 83 years.
A: Hi, Dick. Nice to meet you.
Q: [unintelligible] paying attention.
Q: Honestly, she already made up her mind.
A: Wow, four of them voted yes.
Q: I thought Yaroslavsky was undecided.
Q: [unintelligible]
Q: We'll take 5,000 gallons.
[laughter]
Q: Who'd you call?
A: Everywhere.
Q: It was kind of fun to be a rebel, though, yeah? I'm not a rebel. [unintelligible]
Q: Thank you, thank you.
Q: She's looking at herself.
[chatter]
Q: You know the, uh, plan [unintelligible] that they had to pasteurize the butter that they had?
[chatter]
Q: He got a rotavirus. He was in the hospital. He had IVs in him. Now I know that Lactoperoxidase which is in raw milk inhibits rotavirus.
[chatter]
A: I can't believe this. Last week, we pulled them, and, you know, one was [unintelligible].
[chatter]
Q: So it will be available very soon.
A: That's it.
Q: ...Man, all these constituents want the product. What do you care? Just do your job. If there's a problem, let us know. Let's do it. Yeah. Starts to help us.
[chatter]
A: Oh, my God. We're gonna have a great potluck too. Thank you.
Q: That's her secretary. That's who that was, sitting next to her. She was urging her to vote yes. Like, kneeled next to her.
Q: Oh the one that kept going [unintelligible]?
Q: I don't know. All I know is I saw her at the end. When she was supposed to be voting, she hesitated. They had a little conversation. And when she said no, I saw the person go, you know, like...
Q: Oh, really?
Q: So I knew that had to be her health secretary, the one who drinks raw milk.
Q: Shit. Yeah, I saw her say no. She doesn't mind. But the woman, the black woman...
Q: Do you want me to go get the car?
Q: We're not in the dark ages. We're not a third world country.
Q: Are these recorded? Do we have...
Q: Did you record for a...
Q: Are they for $25?
Q: You can get a video. I bet you...
Q: You've got the whole thing?
Q: Were you recording what they were saying?
Q: I'm sure I did.
Q: Good luck you guys.
[chatter]
Q: Alright, alright, alright.
A: Thank you. Thanks Raymond.
Q: Thank you.
A: No, you did well up there. It was excellent. You went right on with what they were doing.
Q: So, I mean, I've heard it.
A: Such a lie.
Q: I was on, I was on the Today Show, live with Dr. Bolton, and he was saying this stuff. And I said, hey, this is [unintelligible]. Why do you say that? How can you have zero [unintelligible]?
Q: What was your name?
Q: Novel. Raymond Nobel.
A: I'm gonna go get the car.
Q: Boyd and I are in the same office, so just give him a little Claravale.
A: I won't lose you.
Q: All right, you guys, I gotta get going.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Thanks so much.
[chatter]
Q: Sixty days.
Q: Oh, my God.
Q: Sixty days [unintelligible]. First the cream and then the milk.
Q: Well, first the butter.
Q: The butter. Okay, so we got it. I can't believe it. After all this time, we've been coming after coming. Oh. Oh. After all this time, we made it through the day with getting our raw milk after all this time. Thank you.
Q: I've got to interject one story about a product of raw milk. A family back home in Minnesota, they were childless for several years after they were married, and they were trying. And I said, you want kids? And she said, yes, we'd love kids. Well, I said, here, I'll bring you some raw milk. That'll do it. I did. I brought her milk every so many days. And they had three children after that.
Q: Wow.
[chatter]
Q: ... they adopted a child, and I told him that he needed some more food in him. So I gave him some raw milk. [unintelligible] wife got pregnant, so they had to adopt a child and have one a year later.
Q: Wow.
Q: It'll work every time. Every time. Absolutely. When it's an organic condition, it can be counteracted by organically raw milk. Absolutely.
Q: It's amazing. I have friends who are trying to have a child right now. Get them raw milk, and get them to, if they could, get them to sneeze in the face of a cow [unintelligible]. As soon as they have a calf, the enzyme, blood, sweat, tears, urine, skin scrapings, fingernails, you feed those to a cow, soon [unintelligible], as soon as they have a calf. [unintelligible] that milk.
Q: We won, yeah, that's right.
Q: Say that one more time.
Q: We won, we won, yay!
Q: ...Anything that has an antigen, and most conditions have antigens, that antigen can be alleviated. That will be alleviated, that antigen will be reduced in 30 days.
Q: Wow.
Q: Starting with the fresh cow.
Q: I believe it. Nothing, the digestive problems I've had my whole life, nothing helps it like raw milk.
Q: Oh yeah. You've heard, I mean everybody's heard of an apple a day, it keeps the doctor away. But you know, apples, raw milk, beans, beans, it's the only solid food that I can drink, I mean that I can eat. About at two years I had pneumonia, in Minnesota we had a, you know, bad weather caused pneumonia. But anyway, the thing is, this pneumonia outbreak that I had, at age two, the only solid food that I would drink, that I would eat was beans. The only liquid that I would drink was raw milk. And that's how it is.
Q: Here you are.
Q: I'm 73.
Q: And thank you.
Q: Yes, but you pasteurise it and it's gone. Not to mention a bunch of other things, but that's the one I focused on because my grandson got sick.
Q: Well, I know Aajonus and the Western Price Foundation are going to try to start getting raw milk reinstated in every state.
Q: Good, very good. I mean, I got a lot of information today. I mean, I didn't even get to anything today. I just addressed Dr. Field, I can't believe he was so wrong. I mean, at least he said, you know, I really don't know. I know, I liked how the conversation got so vague on his part as it went on.
Q: Yeah well he had to, because he didn't have the facts right there.
Q: Yeah, thanks a lot.
Q: All right, you guys, take care. Give me a call if you need anything.
Q: Oh, no, no, I'm not.
Q: I'm set. Are you taking off?
Q: Do you want to go?
Q: See you, everybody.
Q: I'm getting hungry.
Q: See you, Ebrahim. Thanks for filming and capturing the moment. It's going to be fun to watch.
Q: It's my favorite. I want it back.
Q: You're getting it back.
Q: So, we'll see you in the stores.
Q: What's your last name?
Q: Ornstein. When is the meeting?
Q: [unintelligible] Do you think you can reverse that?
Q: Reversing what?
Q: The interstate thing. Because we need to reverse that.
Q: How did the health department get that permission?
Q: See you guys. Victory!
[chatter]
Q: ...associated with raw milk was that lady swimming. We didn't say drink our milk and it prevents drowning.
Q: She drank the milk and then she went swimming?
Q: She said she had salmonella and then she drank the milk. And you say that's a salmonella related problem?
Q: She drowned and had salmonella?
Q: That's crazy.
Q: The lady drowned and that's got to do with drinking raw milk? That's crazy. That's nuts.
Q: [unintelligible] neighbour four doors down, raw milk [unintelligible].
Q: And they choked him?
Q: No, they just said he may have got salmonella.
Q: What kind of science is that?
Q: It's not science. That's the issue. They know that.
Q: So they're just totally corrupt then?
Q: Yeah.
Q: Well, we'll see you in the markets in about 30 to 60 days.
Q: [unintelligible] out and make blatant statements that are totally inaccurate?
Q: That's like the politicians.
Q: The politicians don't do anything.
Q: So now how do you get your people to vote?
[chatter]
Q: You actually look better for it.
Q: [unintelligible]
Q: Yeah, my young grandson hasn't had any in two years. He's the one that got hospitalized.
Q: [unintelligible]
Q: I don't know. You know, there's a lot of variables. Anybody that says that's the only reason is full of themselves. But I like to think, you know, why do my other grandsons... I mean, they were in the same situation he was in. They never were hospitalized for the virus. And I know that raw milk has Lactoperoxidase which will inhibit or limit the rotavirus. I know that. Johns Hopkins University did a study on it.
Q: On raw milk?
Q: On raw milk and Lactoperoxidase, yes. I mean, that's a pretty big university.
Q: Oh yeah, like the best in the country.
Q: And I talked to the doctor who did it. Personally, myself, I called her up.
Q: What did what?
Q: Did the study on raw milk inhibiting rotavirus infection.
Q: Rotavirus is like...
Q: It's not diarrhea. The kids get it when they're in daycare centers and in school.
Q: Rotavirus is a diarrhea?
Q: It's not a problem for people, even.
Q: Okay, you guys.
Q: Okay. Y'all, come on.
[group starts walking]
Q: Okay.
Q: I read about that. And then two weeks later, they were back on the shelf.
Q: Well, that's just the way it is in life, you know. Things happen. You just gotta keep moving forward.
Q: No, that was pasteurized.
Q: Yeah, I know. But there's a lot of pasteurized milk.
Q: The butter one. That was the problem.
Q: All right. Well, thanks for coming.
Q: Thank you.
Q: We're gonna have to say, I don't know what to say anymore. Everything went in our favor today. We're, we're, we're on the, uh, we're gonna probably see the, uh, Stubes milk in, uh, about 60 days in, uh, in Santa Monica Co-op and, uh, uh, where does the other market? Erewhon, uh, Wild Oats and possibly even Whole Foods. So we've, we had a joyous day today, we should go out and celebrate. Everyone is so over, overwhelmed by all this times that we came here. This was our eighth time here at the Kenneth Hahn Building and, uh, that's all I can think of right now. Okay.